In gardening, more than any other area of life, one learns from one's mistakes, writes Jane Powers
GROWING VEGETABLES is laden down with dos and don'ts. And, yes, I'm as guilty as anyone of issuing orders. Do buy certified seed potatoes rather than planting those old hairy things at the bottom of the vegetable box; don't use chemical sprays and additives on plants you're going to eat; do rotate your major vegetable groups; and for goodness sake don't walk on the soil in your veg beds! (Because compaction is a terrible crime.) All the above is good advice, but it doesn't fit all situations, and isn't the only way of doing things. There are as many ways of growing food as there are of skinning that proverbial cat.
But for some reason we're more afraid of making a mistake in the vegetable patch than we are anywhere else in the garden. Of course, part of this state of fear is thanks to the sage old chaps with pipes who have been doling out lichened-encrusted counsel for the past century or two. Their commands have carried such authority that we've been terrified to use our own initiative, or to look to common sense.
But, as anyone knows who has thrown a potato into a hole in the ground, or sown a row of radishes, seeds want to germinate, and plants want to grow - no matter how ham-fisted our efforts might be. Breeders, moreover, are working all the time to make varieties more disease-resistant, more prolific and more likely to get from seed to table without falling by the wayside. In other words, there's really nothing to be scared of. Even if one gets everything horribly wrong, one rarely experiences complete failure. And in gardening, more than any other area of life, one learns from one's mistakes. Next year is always better.
So, having said all that, and got you into a warm and confident mood about growing your own food, here are some more dos and don'ts to be going on with. Or, I'll tell you what, let's just skip the don'ts and concentrate on the dos.
Do give your vegetables a prime space in the garden, if you have it. They need sun: very little will thrive without several hours of sunlight during the day. They also need good soil and shelter. But if you don't have these, never mind: soil can be built up with compost or manure, and shelter can be created with windbreak fencing. More permanent protection can be planted - hedging or even a "fedge" (a woven, living willow fence) - to take over in a couple of years.
Just remember that hedges and fedges suck a lot of moisture from the ground, so make sure that there is at least a metre between them and the veggies.
You could also have an edible shelter belt: Jerusalem artichokes, which grow to more than metres in a season, can be used as a shield. The weird, knobbly roots make excellent (if rather flatulence-inducing) soup. Globe artichokes (the silvery, bold-leaved ones) and the closely-related cardoons also help filter the wind. If you live in deer or rabbit country, then deer and rabbits will sniff out your vegetable garden, and devour everything in it, so do erect a mammal-proof barrier.
I'm a great believer in dividing the productive patch into raised beds: 1.2 metres wide (that's four feet, for the Imperial thinker) and as long as you like, with paths in between. This allows you to stand on the path, and reach into the centre of the bed: you need never set foot on the soil. Separate beds make planning and rotating so much easier, and the orderly structure means that the area never looks seriously chaotic.
If you don't have room for a dedicated food-growing area, you can still grow edibles in containers, or tuck them in among your ornamentals. Some food plants are very decorative: scarlet runner beans, for instance, were first introduced because of their startling red flowers. And brassicas have unparalleled sculptural qualities: red cabbage and kale are mighty and manly looking, and contrast nicely with feathery, feminine fennel or dill.
Chard is available with stems and ribs that may be red, pink, orange or yellow. The leeks, Bleu de Solaise and St Victor, are two old French varieties that become tinged with a lovely blue-violet in chilly weather. If you forget to harvest all your leeks, let them flower, as they produce interesting nectar-filled tennis balls that are beloved of bees.
And speaking of bees: if you have a vegetable patch, do mix in flowering plants, as they attract these flying do-gooders, as well as butterflies and hoverflies. All help with pollinating crops, while hoverflies are predators of aphids. Also, remember that you can eat certain flowers: they can be scattered over salads like floral confetti.
Calendula (English or pot marigold), chives, nasturtium and viola all make pretty additions to the salad bowl - and can be used to edge beds of food crops.
If space is limited, do grow vegetables that you're not likely to find in the shops, or that taste a million times better if they're picked fresh: for example, purple sprouting broccoli is rarely for sale, and it never has the same flavour as your own, snapped from the plant minutes earlier. Fancy lettuces and other saladings that you grow yourself are in a different league from the limp and fatigued things that are usually offered.
I sow almost all my vegetable seeds (with the exception of root crops) in modules (egg-carton-like plastic affairs), rather than directly into the ground. They are less likely to be sheared off by slugs and snails if they have put on a few centimetres of growth before you let them loose in the garden. I won't go into details of how to sow and grow here, because seed packets have plenty of information on all of that.
I'll end with a very important "do". Do grow only the food crops that you and your family like. If your kids hate shop-bought spinach, they're probably not going to fall in love with the stuff that you produce. And there is nothing more soul-destroying than seeing little noses turned up at your hard-won home-growns. So, grow what you enjoy eating, and everyone will eat what you grow.